LEOMINSTER -- About six years ago, Bruce Blood was looking for a little convertible in which he and his wife, Linnea, could cruise around in during the summer months.

They found a blue 1983 Ford Mustang with a white roof that she immediately fell in love with.

They drove it around during that first year, then he parked it in his garage with intentions of fixing it up, but the years started passing without much getting done.

"I like the color, I like the look of it," Blood said.

Ford made the Mustang GLX only in limited numbers that year with convertible tops, he said.

In the fall of 2011, Blood was diagnosed with lymphoma and started undergoing treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Bruce Blood takes the cover off of his 1983 Ford Mustang GLX convertible, stored in a barn belonging to his friend Dan Pothier on Pleasant Street in Leominster on Friday. Pothier, owner of DJ Auto in Leominster, along with his crew at DJ Auto, fully restored the vehicle for Blood.

Blood moved the Mustang out of the garage so Linnea could park her car inside in case the weather turned bad, and he wasn't up to maintaining it.

The car started deteriorating more in the harsh New England winter.

"The roof was in pretty rough shape, you could throw a cat through it most anywhere," Blood said.

That's when his boss at DJ Auto, Dan Pothier, stepped in to help out his longtime friend.

Pothier offered to park the Mustang in his barn on Pleasant Street. It was just a ruse to get access to the car so he and his son Adam could enlist friends to restore it without Blood knowing.

Blood has known Pothier about 30 years and worked for him about 11 years.

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Pothier knew Blood loved the car and wanted to restore it but was so busy working he never seemed to have time before he got ill.

"He said he would get around to it," Pothier said.

The engine and rear-end were still in good shape but there were plenty of other problems.

"It was just a shell," Pothier said.

They worked weekends and after hours, said Adam Pothier, who works at the shop with is father and Blood.

"It went on for months and months," Adam Pothier said.

They enlisted the help of Dick Bushnell of Bushnell Auto Detailing; Dan Garceau of Leominster Transmission; Bob Junior Leach of J&R Truck Service, and Carl Jess of CJ's Auto Body in Fitchburg.

It was easy enough to work on the car secretly when Blood was in treatment.

Once he started working again, it became a shell game moving the Mustang around the city to different shops so it could be worked on without having Blood see it or learn it was being repaired.

Blood went to visit his mother in Tennessee last summer, sending the crew into overdrive.

Brakes, brake lines, valve covers and the clutch were all repaired or replaced.

"All the mechanical stuff, we did," Pothier said.

The nose and tires were replaced along with the floors in the back seat area

The roof you could throw a cat through was replaced with a top-of-the-line snow white roof.

The seats were reupholstered and the interior trim removed and dyed because it had faded over the decades.

They even replaced the rubber trim around windows to ensure a solid seal.

The 5-liter engine was in pretty good shape, so it just needed a tune-up and a few pieces like the alternator replaced.

At one point during the restoration Blood visited Pothier's home -- and asked to see the car.

Pothier was ready for that and had already come up with the lie that he lost the key to the door.

Blood's health is improving, but he's looking at another eight months of treatment.

"I'm still in treatment," he said. "I'm in what I call partial treatment."

He wanted to pay back Dana Farber Cancer Institute and decided to ride the Pan Mass Challenge last year.

He was wasn't sure about his strength and conditioning so he only went 27 miles.

"The last bike I was on had a banana seat and sissy bar," Blood said.

He rode the challenge alongside his boss and longtime friend Pothier using a borrowed bicycle after five weeks of training.

This year he plans to ride 80 miles with a team of friends, including Pothier.

Other members of the Pedal Pushers team include Adam Pothier, T.J. Pearson, of Lancaster; Diane Saleh of Concord, who's a breast cancer survivor, Dan's sister Donna Rousseau of Florida; and Jim Dodos of Florida.

They are holding a fundraiser dance at the Eagles Hall on Litchfield Street, March 2 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 each.

The team must raise $22,400 to enter.

Pothier and his crew surprised Blood with the Mustang last fall.

They were holding a yard sale at DJ Auto on Central Street to raise money for the ride and at the end of the day snuck down the car to give Blood.

"I turned around and there he was with the car," Blood said. "I recognized it but it damn sure didn't look like the one I had."

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